The Lamp of Fate eBook

There was an unwontedly hard note in Magda’s
voice as she detailed the afternoon’s events,
and Gillian glanced at her sharply.

“I don’t understand. Was he a strait-laced
prig who disapproved of dancing, do you mean?”

“Nothing of the sort. He had a most comprehensive
appreciation of the art of dancing. His disapproval
was entirely concentrated on me—­personally.”

“But how could it be—­since he didn’t
know you?”

Magda gave a little grin.

“You mean it would have been quite comprehensible
if he had known me?” she observed ironically.

The other laughed.

“Don’t be so provoking! You know
perfectly well what I meant! You deserve that
I should answer ‘yes’ to that question.”

“Do, if you like.”

“I would—­only I happen to know you
a good deal better than you know yourself.”

“What do you know about me, then, that I don’t?”

Gillian’s nice brown eyes smiled across at her.

“I know that, somewhere inside you, you’ve
got the capacity for being as sweet and kind and tender
and self-sacrificing as any woman living—­if
only something would happen to make it worth while.
I wish—­I wish to heaven you’d fall
in love!”

“I’m not likely to. I’m in
love with my art. It gives you a better return
than love for any man.”

“No,” answered Gillian quietly. “No.
You’re wrong. Tony died when we’d
only been married a year. But that year was worth
the whole rest of life put together. And—­I’ve
got Coppertop.”

Magda leaned forward suddenly and kissed her.

“Dear Gillyflower!” she said. “I’m
so glad you feel like that—­bless you!
I wish I could. But I never shall. I was
soured in the making, I think”—­laughing
rather forlornly. “I don’t trust love.
It’s the thing that hurts and tortures and breaks
a woman—­as my mother was hurt and tortured
and broken.” She paused. “No,
preserve me from falling in love!” she added
more lightly. “’A Loaf of Bread, and Thou
beside me in the Wilderness’ doesn’t appeal
to me in the least.”

“It will one day,” retorted Gillian oracularly.
“In the meantime you might go on telling me
about the man who fished you out of the smash.
Was he young? And good-looking? Perhaps he
is destined to be your fate.”

“He was rather over thirty, I should think.
And good-looking—­quite. But he ‘hates
my type of woman,’ you’ll be interested
to know. So that you can put your high hopes
back on the top shelf again.”

“If you’d been present at our interview,
you’d realise that ’a little aversion’
is a cloying euphemism for the feeling exhibited by
my late preserver.”

“What was he like, then?”

“At first, because I wouldn’t take the
sal volatile—­you know how I detest the
stuff!—­and sit still where he’d put
me like a good little girl, he ordered me about as
though I were a child of six. He absolutely bullied
me! Then it apparently occurred to him to take
my moral welfare in hand, and I should judge he considered
that Jezebel and Delilah were positively provincial
in their methods as compared with me.”